Such Fragile, Mortal Lives
by Avon
Summary: Estel is eager to ride forth against the Orcs; Elladan has misgivings.


I look across the room at my brother. He is bent over a sword, working on its edge. With slow care, he strokes the sharpening stone down the blade, touches the edge with a careful finger, changes his grip on the sword and begins his downward strokes again. He works with a quiet focus that seems odd in someone so mercurial, but a thousand times have I seen him thus. This night, though, I see a tightness in him that is new: I have put it there. I look away; look down at the arrows I have been fletching. Gently I trace the edges of a feather. The silence in the room is deep and I have no way to bridge it. We have used all the words we have. 

Suddenly, to be still is unbearable and I cast my lapful of arrows down on a table and go to the window. I lean on the casement there as I watch the sky; milky with stars, its beauty comforts me. Unchangeable it has hung above me all the long years of my life, and on this night when my world is tilting and threatening to shatter I search out familiar patterns.

A warm presence ghosts behind me and I lean my head back to see my own face looking at me.

"I am sorry," he says. He puts his arm around my shoulder and rests his head against mine.

I lean against him and feel the warmth of this other half of me. I cannot bear to fight with him yet still I say, in a voice that is almost a whisper,

"He is too young, 'Ro."

I hear the tiredness in my voice even as I turn to see it in my twin's eyes.

"He is a grown man in his people's years."

Over and over have we discussed this, and there seems no ending. I search for something to say, to make him see what I see, but find only,

"Such a bare handful of years"

I hear his answer before he speaks it and, indeed, I do not need to hear it at all. I know that our brother's life must be lived with the intensity of a flame, as he will fade as swiftly as flame falls to ash. I know he is a skilled warrior, for much have I helped in his training. I know that he is eager to ride forth with us and test his mettle against Orcs. I know that Elrohir believes the time has come to give into his pleas and take him with us. All I have to offer in argument is the image of this child's father falling onto snow that flowered with scarlet even as his screams brought us running to his side.

Whilst Elrohir slew the two orcs that had ambushed him, giving them more mercy than we could give our brother, I cradled Arathorn's contorting body. I held him tightly, muffling his screams against my shoulder, and whispered words of comfort though he was beyond hearing them. Even then, even as Arathorn's blood poured over me, I was seeing the small boy who had waved us off from his mother's arms. I knew we had taken his father from him. By the next nightfall, that child would be riding in my arms, wrapped in my cloak... no longer Aragorn son of Arathorn but a nameless, homeless, fatherless boy fleeing to sanctuary. All this had we taken from him - and now he begs to risk his fragile mortal life.

I turn to face my brother and take him in my arms. I press my face against his chest.

"No, Elrohir, I cannot bear it."

I hear with shame how ragged my voice has become. Elrohir doesn't answer, but his hand strokes my hair. I feel the catch of a sob in his chest and hold him more tightly. I do not want to hurt him. He is both half of me and more than me but Estel foolish Estel who glories so in his new grown strength and holds himself with all the confidence of the untried. Tears burn in my throat now, as from behind my tightly closed eyelids, I see both Estel as he is now, see how he stands laughing and proud when he bests me at sword practise, and as he was then, see how he looked up at us wide-eyed and almost silent, bemused by the speed with which his world had been torn apart.

Elrohir is speaking, but I haven't heard what he has said; and he realises it. He shakes me gently until I look at him, and then he repeats it.

"We have to bear it, Elladan. We have to bear it, just as Father did when we began to hunt Orcs. He did not want us to ride against them - but we had the right to avenge our mother."

Elrohir lays his palm against my face and I lean into its comfort.

"Estel has the right to avenge his father's death. We cannot always protect him."

I nod slowly. I know all that he says is true, though still my heart aches.

"His time is not yet, Elladan. The great doom Father foresees for him lies far in front of him still."

"Very well," I whisper and move back from my twin.

It is decided. We will take brave, rash Estel with us - and may the Valar protect the boy Father has named as the hope of the world.

Elrohir clasps my forearms.

"Brother, I promise you that we will ride beside Estel when he must face the end of all things."

Far in the distance, I hear the sound of horns and see a ride of men - grey cloaked and grim-faced - and at their head our brother, crowned with a star. He is broader of shoulder and his face holds a stern majesty. Behind him, I behold us ride, crowned also with our grandfather's star.

I return my twin's embrace.


End file.
